I played and beat the GBA one. It’s okay, but I wouldn’t say it’s great.
I liked the visual style, a few of the characters, the music and the plot… but the battle system was just tedious.
You use items/swords/etc in battle to heal/attack/etc, but they all have a limited number of uses. You get a long sword, you can use it 30 times. Only one weapon has infinite uses (and only one guy can use it).
The way you level up is to master items. If you use, for example, a long sword 4 times, you will master it. This gives you a bonus to HP and strength.
Also, you can enter "practice mode", where you fight random enemies but your items don’t deplete.
So… yeah. Basically, each time you get a new item, you enter practice mode and master it with everyone. Then you fight more regular battles, get an item or two, practice, et cetera. I always had enough items… but I was always nervous that I’d run out, since you can’t buy any more, you have to find them. It’s not a good feeling to have in a game; the Final Fantasy Legend games did it better.
Although, to be fair, the GBA version did have a couple of bath scenes…